Go to page

Recent threadmarks

победитель победитель куриный ужин

Tired of hearing about Fortnite, PUBG, and all the other fantastic Battle Royale games?
Well, too bad. In this thread, I will explore the surprisingly aged roots of this genre.
And it starts with the classic, Tetris.

Before getting upset with me for such a preposterous suggestion, let me first give my evidence.

In Tetris, all of the player's agency is dependent upon how quickly and efficiently he/she reacts to which tetromino is next in the queue. When the player thinks ahead and has enough skill, the next piece really doesn't matter. The grandmasters of the Tetris scene will beautiful puzzle solutions into existence. New Tetris players might rely on that one line piece that's four moves away, but not these glorious professionals. Each piece is a new opportunity for success.

And just like Tetris, less skilled Battle Royale players will get screwed over by the random weapon loot at the start of a match. A good player, whether they get a shotgun, rifle, or explosive, will come out on top in the majority of fights. At least, this is the case in a well balanced Battle Royale (I can't speak for all of them like I can for Tetris). Getting an amazing, rare gun will help a player who might be in a skirmish with a similarly skilled player, but not up against a high skill player. These high skill players can solve the puzzle of enemy interactions, not matter the tool.

Now you might be saying to yourself, "TheDanimal, there's so much more to Battle Royales AND Tetris than the tetrominoes and weapons that you find at the beginning!"
And, my fellow Era member, you'd be right.

These games are all about building towards success. Setting up winning strategies. And, most of all, being the last one standing. Setting up that ten-combo in Tetris and winning a match in a Battle Royale comes down to puzzle solving skills. In Tetris, you have to outsmart yourself by not making foolish mistakes. In Battle Royales, you have to outsmart your opponents using the tools you have been given and the game's creative mechanics.

In the end, the core gameplay mechanic of both Tetris and the Battle Royale genre is how the player manages randomly generated tools and sets up their success.
(btw Tetris is far superior to every game ever to exist)

Early games (2012-2016)
Formulative elements of the battle royale genre had existed before 2012: gameplay modes featuring last man standing rules remain a frequent staple of multiplayer online action games though generally with fewer total players, while elements of scavenging and surviving on a large open-world map were popularized through survival games.

Shortly after the release of the film The Hunger Games in 2012, a server plug-in named Hunger Games (later changed to Survival Games) was developed for Minecraft. Survival Games takes inspiration from the film, initially placing players at the center of the map near a set of equipment chests. When the game commences, players can compete over the central resources or spread out to find items stored in chests scattered around the play area. Players killed are eliminated and the last surviving player wins the match.

In DayZ, a mod for ARMA 2, players struggle alongside or against each other to obtain basic necessities to continue living in a persistent sandbox filled with various dangers. These games were designed to include player versus player encounters, but generally these events were infrequent due to the size of the game's map and the persistence of the game world. This led to the development of game mods that sacrificed ARMA 2/DayZ open-endedness in favor of focusing on more frequent hostile interactions between players to determine an eventual winner.

I guess, but I’m not sure, that what you’re saying is that both games are about the player surviving in a randomized environment through strategic planning and thinking ahead. Then again, I’m not sure if that’s what you’re try to get at.

And then there’s other human controlled enemies in fortnite and that has nothing to do with Tetris. Or do you mean Tetris vs mode?

I kinda get what you're getting at but as it stands the comparison is too broad and doesn't really establish a meaningful connection between the two.

Aggressive versus defensive piece placement, scoring, speed management and proper stacking are all skills necessary for good Tetris play that are no where seen in the Royale games. That same goes for proper aiming and such with the Battle Royale genre.

Terms like "building towards success" and "Setting up winning strategies." can be applied to a vast majority of games.